Sunrise
by dominanttuba
Summary: "Brienne! No! Tell him no! Brienne, say no!" "What are you talking about Jaime?" "Tell Hyle - tell him no. I want to. Me, not him."


"Where are Brienne and Ser Hyle?"

"She went off that way after a deer not long ago, and Ser Hyle followed a little after saying something about helping her carry it, but I think he's just going to propose again."

Jaime would have spit his wine had he been drinking some. "WHAT?"

Pod's eye's could have been archery targets, they were so wide. "I thought you knew, Ser, I thought she would have told you."

"I would like to think so too, but apparently we were both mistaken."

Pod went back to chopping kindling and Jaime tried to focus on the horses but found he could not. He took off in the direction Pod had indicated earlier only slowing when he finally caught sight of their figures ahead of him. "Brienne! No! Tell him no! Brienne, say no!" When he entered their circle of trees, he saw them both eying him as if he'd had a Greyjoy Kraken stuck to his face.

"What are you talking about Jaime?"

"Tell him - tell him no. I want to. Me, not him." He managed to get out between breaths.

They were still looking at him like he was crazy. "… You want to carry the deer then?"

Jaime, somehow, kept his composure. He coughed, "Ah, yes. Yes, that's precisely it. Hyle, you're wearing grey, wouldn't do to get blood all over it. But I'm in red - Lannister crimson s good for something, eh?" He finished with a smile at them both as he scooped up the dead body of the thin deer Brienne had bowed down minutes before.

With a last look at Jaime, presumably to make sure he wasn't sick of fever or worse, Brienne said she was going to collect some firewood before heading back to camp and asked the men to begin gutting the deer. They turned back to camp.

After a minute, "What was that about, Lannister?"

"What do you mean, Hyle? It's a nice doublet, I'd hate to see it marred-"

Hyle stopped in his tracks. "The boy told you I proposed."

Jaime halted too and viewed the woods around them before looking him straight in the eye. "He did."

"And you thought I was going to try again."

Jaime swallowed. "I did."

He paused before his next accusation… "You love her."

Jaime paused too… "I do."

Hyle eyed him up and down, and his mouth curved into… a smile? A sneer? Jaime could not say which. "You know what, Lannister? I believe you. I think you do love her.

Jaime dropped the deer. "I do, Hyle, I do. And if I had even one reason to believe that you did too, I would not have run after you as I did."

Hyle nodded before continuing to walk. "Fair enough. I'll admit I admire her, that I value her company, and that I truly and honestly feel for the wrong I did her. I cannot, however, safely attest to loving her. Nor can I promise that I ever will."

"There was a time, Ser, when I would have said the same."

"But you wouldn't now, would you? No, in fact I think you're itching to give my nose another blow."

Jaime almost laughed, remembering the strike he'd made with his golden hand after learning that Hyle, too, was in on Connington's cruel bet.

"No, I don't feel that urge. Not if you will agree to retract your offer."

Hyle stopped again and eyed Jaime. "Ser, that is a tall request. Man to man, I would let you have her. I may not love her, but she is my friend and I want her to be happy, even if that means with you. But I am no fool, Lannister. You are a knight of the Kingsguard. You cannot take her as a wife, you cannot father her heirs, and you cannot inherit her lands." He eyed him a bit more maliciously before moving on and sending his last remark, "Hells, even if you didn't have that white cloak, you still couldn't properly offer your hand…"

Jaime reasoned out the jape and, before he could think lifted the deer carcass and launched it into Hyle's back, knocking him to the ground with an "Oomph!" He scrambled back up but Jaime's good hand was on his tunic and Hyle was against a tree before the younger man could pull the dagger he'd been reaching for.

"I may be down a hand, Hunt, but one's all I'd need to cut you to pieces and you know it. So here are my rules: if you marry her, you better pray to the gods that you find a way to love her. Because if I ever hear tell of a bastard, or a mistress, or even your own measly little hand taking her place, I will personally hunt you down and make it so you could never hope to bed her or any other woman ever again. And if I happen by Tarth on a travel, and I don't see her eyes light up whenever you walk into a room, or say a word, or take a shit, I'll do the same. Understand?"

To his credit, Hyle did not looked cowed. If anything, Jaime thought, he looked insolent. But eventually, the man nodded and Jaime let go. Hyle stormed back to camp, Jaime hefted the deer once more, and dinner was a strained and quiet affair.

The next time the quartet passed a crossroad, Ser Hyle hung back at the intersection. At Brienne's inquest he responded, "My lady, I thank you for your fine company and for your gallantry as it affected the preservation of my life. I have made you an offer as part of a repayment for that, and as a token of my friendship, but I have come to realize that you do not wish it. Therefore, I will be on my way home. I wish you the best." And with a nod, he trotted off on his own way. Pod looked a bit longingly after him (the boy had become rather fond of the man's stories and tales), Jaime thought he had never seen anything so wonderful, but Brienne, for her part, looked as though she had taken a lance to the breastplate. Her eyes were large and her mouth agape and it seemed she had forgotten how to breathe.

Jaime was the first to speak. "My lady, it looks like snow - we'd best get going. As I remember there is an inn ahead. We ought to make it by nightfall."

Brienne closed her mouth and nodded silently. With a last look after Hyle, she turned and continued on the road.

The inn was old and run down in places. The stables looked to have been freshly built, presumably a replacement for what was now the pile of ash and sooted stone laying next to it. They were the only travelers and so the horses had the barn to themselves, just as the trio had the dining room to themselves once they had paid for their rooms and meals. Usually, Pod was the first to finish and the first to retire, but tonight Brienne beat him to it. She hardly touched her meal and made her excuses before Pod had even made it to his second helping of stew. Jaime and Pod watched her go, spoons halfway to their mouths, before looking to each other - Pod shrugged and Jaime sighed.

"Is she alright?" The boy asked.

"Pod, I'll give you one piece of advice. Never assume that you know how a woman is feeling. Ever. Not even a woman who wears armor and a sword."

Pod considered his words before nodding and returning to his stew. They finished the meal in silence and soon enough Pod went up to bed as well, grateful that the empty inn allowed him the rarity of his own bedroom.

Jaime stayed downstairs by the fire. He'd heard of the red priests seeing things in the flames, and wondered if he could have that power too. Could they show him his future? Even if it did, he doubted he'd be able to make sense of it. He could hardly make sense of his past, and he certainly couldn't make sense of his present… He climbed the stairs to his bedchamber, intent on sleeping away his worries and self-doubts when he halted at the sound of… weeping?

'The innkeep's wife, surely', he thought. But no, they were on the ground floor, by the kitchen. 'The boy's snores then - he must be mistaking them for sobs'. But no, a quick check at his door revealed only silence. He crept to Brienne's room and, sure enough, 'Oh, wench, why? You know I can't deal with this…' But as much as he dreaded calming a crying woman, he still more hated the thought of leaving her be and going to his own bed knowing she was unhappy. He put his hand to the doorknob and steeled himself.

The door was not locked, and it was not quiet either. Brienne turned at the sound of its opening and quickly swiped at her eyes. "Jaime, I'm afraid your room is still one more down-"

"I know which room is mine, wench." He shut the door behind him and sat on the bed to her left. "Now what's wrong?"

"Nothing, Jaime, nothing's wrong."

"Don't give me that. I know you well enough by now to know that this isn't nothing." When her only response was to stare at her hands, he forced himself to get it into the open. "It's about Hyle, isn't it?"

Brienne kept her composure for a moment before the tears welled up again and her hands went to her eyes. "Oh, Jaime, I- I'll never get another chance. When he rode away, I just - I just knew…"

Jaime put his golden hand around her back and pulled her into his shoulder, trying to shush her as he did so. Gods, this was hard. This must be some cruel god's idea of a joke - his punishment for all those years with Cersei - having to comfort Brienne during her heartbreak over another man.

"Brienne, it's okay, it's okay. I know he was…" What was he? What were his redeeming qualities? Jaime was having trouble thinking of some at the moment… "funny. And maybe he could be kind, but he wasn't perfect, obviously. Not if he left."

"But that's just it, Jaime, it doesn't matter what else he was or wasn't if he's gone. He was my chance at finally doing what my father had always wanted of me. He would have married me."

'Yes, for your title and your lands, nothing more' he thought, but said nothing as he held her closer. "Brienne, it will pass, believe me it will. Just think how you felt after Renly - but now look, here you are crying over another man-"

Brienne's sharp glance stopped him. "You- you think… Hyle, and Renly?"

Jaime, not entirely sure what he'd done wrong, tried to cover his tracks. "No, I just meant that love does re-grow, it will happen again. Maybe not soon, but eventually you'll meet a man who can take Hyle's place, just as he took Renly's."

Brienne's eyes narrowed in confusion. "You think I loved him?"

It was Jaime's turn to narrow his eyes in confusion. "You're crying over him…"

"Not over him," she said as she stood and went to stoke the fire, "over his offer. I'm not like to get another one. Now, I'll return to Tarth with nothing but battle wounds to show for my time away. And I'm sure _those_ will help my marriage prospects..."

"I wouldn't have thought you much of one to care about prospects."

"I don't, but my father does. I am his only heir. It's up to me to continue the line… Hard to do when the only man willing to take my hand, and not out of jest, just went cantering off into the woods. I didn't even have to tell him 'no'…"

Jaime took a deep breath. 'Now or never' he thought.

"I told him."

Brienne turned. "Told him what?"

"I told him 'no'. For you. I told him to leave."

"What? Why? Jaime, I know you may not believe it, but not all of us have half the kingdom falling over each other to marry us-"

Jaime pressed on, "I told him to go because he's not the only one, even if you think he is."

Brienne stopped. "He's not the only one to what?"

Jaime stepped closer. "He's not the only one who would ask for your hand."

The tears threatened to come back as she could only respond with, "Jaime, please don't play with me."

"Never." He knelt. "Brienne, I can't offer you… well, anything, really. Once I get rid of this cloak I certainly won't be entitled to any lands, nor will I be poised to inherit. Hells, I can't even offer you a proper hand," he said as he reached for her bare hand with his gold one. "But I can offer you my friendship, my respect, my trust, my admiration, and my love. Of that, I assure you, I can offer more of than any other man alive. And not for anything to do with battle scars, but because you have shown me what it truly means to live, and because of that I cannot imagine a life without you.

"I sent Ser Hyle away because I did not believe him to be more capable of making you happy than I. If you feel I was wrong, you have only to say so and I will go now to retrieve hi-"

But he never was able to finish his offer. Brienne's lips were on his too quickly, and they didn't leave again for the better part of the night.

As the sun rose that morning it met the bleary eyes of Ser Hyle as he continued down the road he'd traveled all night. It poured over Pod's smile as he watched the staircase that had, as of yet, borne no other boots than his own (just as Ser Jaime's bed had borne no person, as he saw when he went in to the room to borrow a razor this morning). And the same new sun peeked through the curtained windows of the room that belonged to the woman who was once the Maid of Tarth. It streaked across the floor and the clothes and the foot of the bed to fall upon a pair of blue eyes that, as his eyes fluttered open for the first time that morning, Jaime swore he would never tire of waking up to.


End file.
